NEED FOR PARADIGM SHIFT IN PEDAGOGY FOR TEACHING THE FUNDAMENTALS OF PHYSICAL PLANNING EDUCATION

Abstract: In general, the field of physical planning is multidisciplinary in nature and is concerned with planning of landuse, environment, infrastructure, transport networks, housing, etc., to meet the present and future needs of the people. One of the biggest challenges is teaching the fundamentals to the student beginners, thus orienting them towards such a multidisciplinary and dynamic field. In most institutes offering planning education in India, the fundamentals are taught through the studio on graphics and presentation techniques. However, the basic curriculum of this studio is most frequently oriented towards and influenced by the field of architecture than physical planning. Due to this, very often the students find it difficult to relate the knowledge gained in the first studio to the subsequent studios of the planning course. This paper attempts to relook at the pedagogy adopted for teaching the fundamentals of physical planning education. For this purpose, the authors discuss the most frequently adopted methods of teaching the first planning studio highlighting their merits and demerits. In this paper, the authors share their own pedagogical experimentation in teaching this studio. After a comprehensive review and analysis of various teaching approaches including the learnings from the experimentation, the authors emphasise a need for paradigm shift in pedagogy for the first planning studio, thus orienting the students more towards the field of physical planning.  

Keywords: Planning education, teaching pedagogy, bachelor of planning, physical planning, studio curriculum.